MOB BOSS 3: LOVE AND RETRIBUTION (14 page)

He puled out just in time, just as he released al over her ass, his cum thick and sticky, his breathing so heavy he could hardly control it. He slumped against her, and stayed there. And then he laid over, on his back, the sweat pouring from him as his body slammed down. And she colapsed too, on her stomach, her body as emptied, as satiated, as whiplashed as his.

She turned and looked at him. The veins in his muscles were stil showing. The sweat stil shone in glistening effect al over his body. And his penis and bals were stil red hot, stil on fire, from the pounding.

But it was his breathing that held her attention the most. He was always winded after their lovemaking; she often was too. But Tommy was almost ten years older than she was, and she was beginning to worry about him. Sometimes, on assignments, when she was in some dark van on her way or in some dark room waiting, she would think about Tommy. Was he eating properly? Was he getting enough rest? Was he stil trying to run two restaurants and his security firm on three hours sleep?

She placed her hand on his chest, as if her touch alone could help regulate his breathing, and he placed his hand over hers.

“I’m okay,” he said, patting her hand. “I just need a minute.”

She smiled. She knew what he meant. She turned back around, and just lay there, until, within minutes, she was sound asleep.

Tommy, now recovered, turned on his side and looked at her. She stil carried his release al over her backside, not to mention what he had poured into her vagina earlier, and just the thought of it, just the sight of his mark al over her, was turning him on again. He was actualy getting a hard on again.

Then he smiled.

“Not on your life,” he said aloud as he wiled himself to get up, to get a damp wash cloth, and to purge her of him, inside and out.

EIGHT

Shawna sat at a window booth inside the Taste of Southern restaurant and sipped coffee. She watched as one of the three waitresses hanging out at a table near hers pointed toward the smudged-stained window.

“Check out that bad ride,” the one Shawna had heard them cal Peewee said to the one they caled Maria. Both gawked at the pearl-colored Bentley as it puled into the half-empty parking lot. It was after two, which meant the lunch crowd had gone and the dinner crowd hadn’t started arriving yet, so any car puling up would have garnered attention. Especialy one as luxurious as the one the two waitresses were eyeing.

“That’s Tommy Gabrini’s car,” a third waitress, a good looking blonde, said to the other two. She was seated at the table they were hanging out at, going over receipts. Apparently the manager or some such person, Shawna figured.

“Who’s Tommy Gabrini?” PeeWee asked. She was a smal, yelow-toned black woman with long braids and longer fingernails. She and Maria, a taler but also slim Hispanic, were apparently on break.

“Y’al new so y’al wouldn’t know,” the blonde pointed out. “But that’s just Tommy Gabrini. He owns this restaurant. Owns Diamante’s too.”

“For real?” Maria said. “Dang. I can’t even afford a drink in a place like Diamante’s.”

“Yeah, it’s weird to me too,” the blonde said. “He owns a five-star luxury restaurant like Diamante’s, and a cheap, soul food joint like this.”

“Say what you want,” PeeWee said, impervious to her manager’s put-down of the very soul food their livelihoods depended on, “but I like this restaurant.”

“And given the way so many people come here every single solitary day,” Maria said, “it’s as popular as Diamante’s.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” PeeWee said and the manager laughed.

“Damn!” Maria said as Tommy, in shirt sleeves, stepped out of his car. “Look at that fine looking man there.”

PeeWee looked too, although the manager, Shawna noticed, didn’t bother.

“That’s the owner?” Maria asked. “He looks so beautiful, so strong and elegant.” Then she laughed. “I’l bet you be al over that, Janet. Don’t you?”

Janet snorted, and Shawna could see the bitterness in her eyes. “Not hardly,” she said.

“Why not?” Maria asked her.

“Wrong color,” she said, and Peewee looked at her.

“What you mean wrong color? You’re white and he’s white, how is that the wrong color?”

“It’s him. I’ve never seen him with a white woman not one single time.” She looked out of the window too. “I don’t think he can handle a white woman,” she added.

PeeWee wanted to snort, Shawna could tel it. But she also wanted her job. “Yeah, that must be it,” Peewee said snidely and Shawna smiled, sipped her coffee, and looked out of the window too.

Tommy stood beside his Bentley, a car he rarely drove, and put on his suit coat. Shawna had driven her Lexus, which he had parked beside, a car he had purchased for her when hers was totaled during one of her more colorful junkets. And although the ladies were right to gawk over his great looks, she loved him more for the person he was inside. He didn’t constrain her; he didn’t try to remake her in his own image the way her ex-husband had tried. She knew he could change, just as her ex had, but lately she was beginning to wonder if it would be worth the risk. The idea of belonging to one man was an intolerable thought to her after what she endured with Alex, but it was almost a false choice to her now. Because, in truth, she had belonged to Tommy Gabrini ever since the first day she laid eyes on him.

And just thinking about the way he made love to her last night, as she watched him walk across the parking lot and enter his large restaurant, made her vagina squeeze in anticipation of the next time that thick dick of his would find its way deep inside of her. Then she smiled. Every time she spent any appreciable time around Tommy, she stayed horny as hel.

“Helo, Mr. Gabrini,” Maria said as Tommy began walking toward their table.

“Helo, dear, how are you?”

“I’m doing good, sir.”

Tommy looked beyond her at his manager. “Helo, Janet,” he said.

“Helo, Mr. Gabrini.”

“I take it these ladies are two of the new hires you were teling me about.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You must be Maria,” he said, his light blue eyes bearing into Maria’s dark brown eyes.

“Yes, sir,” Maria replied, smiling.

“And you must be Patrice.”

“Yes, sir, but everybody cals me Peewee.”

“Wel Peewee, I understand you used to work at Mama Pearl’s.”

“For over five years, yes, sir, I sure did. Until Mama Pearl passed on.”

“Very good restaurant. Mama Pearl gave me a lot of pointers before I opened up this place.”

“For real?” PeeWee said, and then caught herself. “I mean, that’s good.”

Tommy smiled. “For real is right,” he said. “Welcome aboard.”

“Thank-you very much, sir.”

Tommy then looked at Janet. “Is my brother here?”

“Yes, sir. He’s in the office.”

“Tel him I want to see him,” he said, and then moved past their table and headed for Shawna’s. Al three women were watching as he leaned over, kissed Shawna on the lips, and then sat across from her.

“What did I tel y’al,” Janet whispered to the other two, and then hurried to do what her boss had ordered her to do.

“Any sight or sign of her yet?” Tommy asked Shawna after he sat down.

“She’s at the corner of Blanchard. She should be here within four and a half minutes.”

Tommy smiled. “That precise, are we?”

“I leave nothing to chance,” she said. “Especialy when it involves family.”

Tommy was astounded when she said that. Shawna, too, astounded herself. But she didn’t take it back. Because, in truth, Tommy was realy the only family she had. And his family, by extension, she felt, was her family. It was ludicrous, she knew. But that was how she felt.

“I stil think we should have schooled Sal Luca on what was going on before now.”

“I don’t. If I was to---”

A waitress came up to him. “Would you like anything to drink, sir?”

“No, thank-you, Ann, I’m fine,” he said with his most charming smile, Shawna noticed.

The waitress left.

“If I told my brother beforehand,” Tommy continued, “then he would try to change the plan to fit what he believes is the best way.”

“This is the best way.”

“You know it and I know it and Reno sure as hel knows it. That’s why I wanted to keep it between the three of us.”

Shawna drank more coffee. “Katrina’s nice,” she said.

Tommy looked at her. “Yes, she is.”

“Reno impressed me. I expected him to marry a trophy, or at least a mockingbird.”

Tommy shook his head. “Reno’s got more sense than that.” Then he looked at Shawna again. “As do I.”

They exchanged a glance, and then Sal Luca, Tommy’s baby brother, walked over.

“Shanks?” Sal said, surprised to see her. “What wind blew you this way?” He sat beside Tommy, his short, round, buldog frame a stark contrast to Tommy’s tal leanness.

“Long time, no see, Sal,” Shawna said to the buldog of a man. He and Tommy, she felt, were like night and day in every way.

“Yeah, long time,” Sal said, checking her out too. “I thought you and Tommy were through. Tommy said he was done with you.”

Shawna laughed. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

Sal looked at her sincerely. “What you want me to lie to you? Is that what you prefer?”

“No,” Shawna said, heartfelt. “I love your honesty.”

Sal smiled. Of al of Tommy’s black females, and they al were black, she was the only one he liked. He looked at his brother.

“So what you want? Janet said you wanted to see me.”

“We’re getting a package delivered here in a few minutes.”

“Male or female?”

“Female.”

“Female.”

“Gonna have to be moved?”

“Yes.”

“Who is it?”

Tommy hesitated. “Marcy.”

“Marcy? Marcy Davenport? You don’t think she had anything to do with the PaLargio hit. Do you?”

“We’l go through the back,” Tommy said. “Get it ready.”

Sal looked at his big brother. Al of his life he wanted to be just like Tommy. And even now, at the age of thirty, he stil wanted to be just like Tommy.

He stood up. Looked at Shawna. “You staying around or what?”

“I’l be around,” she said.

“See you around then,” Sal said and left, his thick thighs causing him to sashay more than walk.

“You’d better go too,” Shawna said. “She just drove up.”

Tommy looked and saw a rental car pul into the driveway. When Marcy Davenport stepped out, he stood and made his way toward the back. Shawna pressed her Bluetooth. It was one of her team.

“The subject has arrived,” he said.

“I got her,” Shawna replied.

The cloth that covered her entire face came off and the only person in the room with her was Reno. She was relieved, Reno would never harm a hair on her head, but angry too.

“You’re an asshole, Reno!” she shouted.

“Yeah, I know,” he replied as calmly as she was hysterical. “What else you got?”

“You’re an insufferable, pea-brain, muscle-headed motherfucker!”

“I know that too. What else you got?”

Marcy looked at him with a smoldering contempt that soon dissolved into sadness. Reno’s heart dropped.

“Where am I?” she asked, looking around at the smal, windowless room. “And why am I in handcuffs? I knew you were kinky, Reno, but even you wouldn’t go through this much trouble to get some.”

She was seated on a smal, rolaway bed and Reno was seated in front of her in a chair, his legs crossed, his hands clasped and to one side. He wore darkened shades to avoid revealing his emotions.

This woman was the mother of his son, a son they both lost less than a year ago. If she was the mastermind behind the PaLargio hit, he would do what he had to do, but it would be a shame. He didn’t want to hurt this woman. She’d been hurt enough.

“Talk to me, Reno,” she continued. “What’s this about?”

“Didn’t Shanks tel you?”

“Shanks didn’t tel me shit. She said Tommy wanted to meet with me. I come al this way, on my own dime mind you, thinking Tommy had something important to say and that’s why he was going

through Shanks. I get to Taste of Southern, go in the back, and I see Tommy. Then the next thing I know my mouth is stuffed, my head is covered, and I’m being transported. I don’t deserve this treatment, Reno. You know I don’t. You owe me.” She said this last line with such bitterness that it made Reno wince. “Now what is it you want from me?” she wanted to know.

“Where were you the day the PaLargio was hit?”

She frowned. “What? The PaLargio, hit, Reno? Seriously? You’re trying to lay that hit on me?”

“You have motive.”

“What motive?”

“You hate me.”

“I’ve always hated you, so what?” She loved him once, she knew, when they were an item, but that was a long time ago.

“You hated me more after Nicky’s . . . death.”

The terror was stil in her eyes, Reno could see it. “So,” she said, determined to hide it.

“So that gives you a powerful motive.”

“Bulshit. What I look like hitting the PaLargio, come on, Reno, think! Why would I do something that stupid? And to take out your mother, to almost take out Franny. I didn’t hate them.”

“What about my wife?”

“What about that bitch?”

Reno’s jaw tightened. “If not you, Marce, then who?”

“I need some money, Reno, that’s why I came. I thought Tommy could set me up.”

“Talk to me, Marcy.”

“I wil. But I need some money.”

Reno paused. “I gave you money.”

“And it’s gone, al right? I need some more.”

Reno stared at her. He’d heard months ago that she was on drugs. Reno was hurt by the news but he couldn’t blame her. Not after the horrific way she had to stand there and watch her own child die.

“You’re on the junk, aren’t you, Marcy?” he asked her.

“I need some money, Reno.”

“Alright already. I’l give you money. Now give me what I need. Tel me who ordered the hit on the PaLargio.”

She looked at Reno. “You know who.”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“
Got
dammit, Marcy, does it look like I know who? Who?”